


Silence

by baar_ur



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Dragon Age Kink Meme, F/M, Gen, Templar Hawke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-06
Updated: 2015-06-06
Packaged: 2018-04-03 04:45:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4087456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baar_ur/pseuds/baar_ur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marian Hawke has been keeping a secret. It comes back to bite her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Silence

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fill for a pair of Dragon Age Kink Meme requests, both for a templar-specialized Hawke trying to friendmance Anders.

“Hawke!” Aveline bellows in warning. “Saarebas! On the cliff!”

Marian shakes off the wounded Tal-Vashoth clinging to her shield and turns to look. One of the spear-throwers guarding the mage snarls down at her. He’s all broken teeth and broken horns, almost as ugly as a hurlock. She deflects the missile he aims at her easily. “Anders!”

“They never learn, do they?” he calls down from the rise at her back.

Now that she knows she has his attention, she doesn’t use words. Their battle-sign for fire is a downward pinch from ear- to shoulder-height, and then an open-handed shove indicates the direction of the attack. Sure enough, a moment later, a ball of flame roars over her shoulder. The saarebas throws up a barrier wall, too slow to protect the spear-throwers. They fall back, with at least one tumbling from the cliff. Marian knows it’s horrifically wrong for her to grin at the sight of the saarebas’ barrier, and yet…

The power crackles up her spine like lightning. It starts to nestle at the back of her neck, soft and insidious. It says she can do anything, she can strike anyone down. Even the highest of mages.

_How can you cast Silence on someone whose mouth is sewn shut?_

The words and the doubt are both hers, but the voice is Anders’. He hisses it the way he hissed at the templars holding his friend before Justice took charge.  She can see his face when she closes her eyes to marshal the power pressing between her shoulder blades, twisted with hate and fear and loathing.

She does it anyway.

First a strike. It’s like pressing a sword below the breastbone and up into the heart, but with holy fire for a blade, fire that cancels the barrier and drains the saarebas’ mana. Then she lashes out, calling on the fire settled under her collarbones to _wrap the mage, bind him, make him powerless, nothing, less than nothing-_

The saarebas goes down with one of Bianca’s bolts in his throat. Marian stumbles forward a step as the Silence collapses in on itself. She catches herself before she falls completely, wedging her shield against a stone. Everything sounds distant, as though she cast the Silence on herself rather than the enemy.

Varric chortles, making a great deal of noise as he collapses Bianca. “Nice job, Hawke. Didn’t know you could do shit like that.”

“She didn’t tell you?” Aveline grunts. The squishing noise as she pulls her sword from a Tal-Vashoth body does not help Hawke’s nausea. “Marian trained as a Templar recruit before we left Ferelden.”

“Really.” Anders’ voice is cold as ice, colder. He could be speaking from the Sunless Lands beyond the Korcari.

Anything the others say in reply, Marian cannot hear over the roaring in her ears. She pulls her arm from the straps of her shield, intending to abandon it and stumble away. She only manages to fall to her knees before she vomits onto the sand.

For a moment, it seems like the world has turned to salt and acid, tears and ocean air and bile. A cool touch on her cheek helps her steady herself as she pants for breath.

“- something on their spears?” Aveline’s asking.

“Maybe. There were some left on that cliff,” Anders replies evenly. “Grab one for me? You can check for survivors while you’re at it.”

“Got it, Blondie.”

Marian leans into Anders’ hand as she waits for the others to leave earshot. This could be the last time he’ll ever touch her. She might as well get all she can out of it.

He doesn’t speak until the crunching of sand has faded. “So. A templar.”

“I’m so sorry,” Marian slurs. “I’m so-“

“I don’t want to hear that you’re _sorry_ ,” Anders hisses. “I _want_ an explanation.”

Shakily, she pushes herself up to sit on her heels. “They were the only-“ Her already-spinning head takes a sudden lurch, and she swallows against the urge to vomit again. “The only option.”

“The only option for what? To keep your father and sister in line?”

“Never!” She can’t help staring at him. That he could even think that… But the templars he’s met are not the same ones she dealt with. She shakes her head, dropping her gaze. “We lived in Calon before Lothering. A pig-shit little bannorn. There was no one to teach me to fight but the templars. And I could hear any rumors that they suspected Papa. When we moved to Lothering, I forged a letter that I was a promising recruit. I would never- _never_ \- have joined the Order.”

“And the lyrium?” Anders’ stare is cold and hard.

“I’ve never. I think that being a mage’s child is what gives me enough- enough power to cast without lyrium.” She laughs nervously. “Found that out by accident. I was just messing around, copying what the knights did, and all of a sudden Bethy was screaming.” She tries to laugh again and only manages a huff. “I threw up then, too. I haven’t used the abilities against a living soul since then.”

For a long moment, the only sounds are crashing waves and birdcalls on the wind. “Come here,” Anders finally orders. When Marian offers her hand, he pulls her to her feet.

“If you want-“ She sways dangerously before managing to brace herself in the sand. “If you want to hurt me, I won’t stop you. But I have to take care of Bethy, and Mother-”

“Be quiet,” Anders snaps. White light flares from his hand as he reaches for her.

Marian closes her eyes. She won’t cry out- she has her pride- but she’ll take whatever he wants to punish her with, if it means he’ll forgive her. She starts when his fingers brush her cheek, but doesn’t flinch. The healing washes over the side of her neck, closing the scratch where she was grazed by a spear, and down her aching shoulders. Her eyes fly open, and she watches Anders in surprise. He touches her lips, and his magic trickles down her throat like cool water. When he pulls his hand away, her roiling stomach has settled and she no longer tastes acid on her tongue.

“You’re telling the truth.” He’s doing his best to stay calm, to keep Justice under control, but she can hear the undercurrent of surprise in his voice. It hurts worse than any of her wounds from the fight.

“Of course I am, but how can you tell?” She tries to pull one of the crooked, sardonic smiles that Varric loves so much, but it feels false.

“You don’t have a templar knight’s resistance to magic. If you did, I- I probably would’ve noticed earlier.” Anders runs his fingers through his hair. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Would you have trusted me? ‘Hello, I’m Hawke. I know half your secrets and I’m something you fear and abhor.’”

“Marian-“

“If you want to hurt me, do it!” She takes a step toward him. He doesn’t pull back, but all the focus in his amber eyes is suddenly on her. “Whatever you want, whatever you _need_ to do in order to forgive me, do it! But please, forgive me.”

“Marian.” This time her name is a sigh.

“I only ever wanted-“ She swallows, this time against tears instead of bile. “I wanted my family safe. I wanted to help. I wanted-“ Pretending she’s not avoiding his eyes, she smooths a few feathers in his mantle. “I wanted to be your friend.”

Anders pulls her hand away from his mantle. Marian braces herself to be pushed away, but instead he folds her hand in his. “You are my friend,” he murmurs. “You’ve never done anything to hurt me, and… I suppose if you were going to turn me in, you would’ve done it long ago.”

“I would never-“

He cuts her off with a finger to her lips. “I forgive you.”

She wants desperately to embrace him, but it’s too much to ask. She can’t push her luck twice in one day. Instead, she tugs his hand away from her mouth. “Thank you.” At the last minute, impulsively, she kisses his knuckles.

Anders blushes, but whatever he means to say is cut off by the clatter of armored boots on stone. “Hawke!” Aveline calls down. “Are you well?”

“Aye!” Marian shouts back as she steps away from Anders. “Just out of practice.”


End file.
